Wednesday, July 12th, 2017

Time	Event
1:00p	Multimedia and Personal Devices Driving Need for Denser Storage Solutions Tim Poor is VP of Application Engineering for Equus Computer Systems. Storage capacity demands for all types of organizations continue to increase dramatically every year – many are now reporting a doubling of data in less than a year. No one in the industry is taking any bets on that number remaining constant. Fueled largely by the enormous increase in multimedia and personal devices, data centers are looking at higher density drives as one avenue to accommodate growing storage needs in the face of power, cooling, and space restraints. To make informed choices on a balanced system architecture, administrators need to carefully evaluate a number of factors, including performance, data types, capacity, environments, and relative costs. Industry Trends Affect Need for Denser Storage Solutions The real catalyst for the exponential growth in data storage has multiple prongs and include everything from home photos and movies, to smart devices. Companies face a real challenge adapting to this massive growth in data and devices. Shutterbugs who used to selectively snap photos, aware of film and photo processing costs, now shoot numerous photos and video on their digital cameras with little or no thought of the increasing storage needed for this new content. With the increase in availability and acceptance of cloud-based storage, more and more of this data is migrating from personal devices directly to cloud data centers. This increase in media quality is also forcing storage increases on the corporate world. Companies that historically shared information on their website by posting text files and photos are now switching to rich multimedia formats such as movies, video clips, and high definition photos. In addition to end user media growth, the advent of smart devices for home and industry has caused another explosion of data. With the Internet Of Things (IoT) rapidly moving everyday appliances and systems into the digital world with the integration of intelligent sensor technology, millions of new data generating devices are going online every day. Companies are now having to consider how to best handle constant feeds of data coming from these devices, how long they need to keep the data, and what storage systems they will need to house the data. This all adds up to a need for huge increases in data center storage capacity. Higher Density Storage Needed in Data Centers Storing the growing number and size of files is one of the largest challenges facing data centers today. While the maximum hard drive capacity has increased dramatically from 2-4 terabytes (TB) just three or four years ago to around 10TB today, it has also taken new ideas and designs for the storage systems themselves to manage this explosion in data. Just making the hard drive capacity larger isn’t enough. Increasing the number of hard drives in a single storage system is also needed to keep up with the storage demand. Over the past few years, 4U storage systems have scaled from 16-20 3.5” hard drive bays up to 60 and beyond, increasing the density of drives per rack. Equus Computer Systems recently developed a 60-drive server with a total storage capacity of more than ½ a petabyte in a 4U form factor. This equates to more than 5 petabytes per 42U rack, enabling data centers to store more data in their valuable data center floor space. This ever-increasing volume of data is forcing data centers to rethink how and where they store data. Facing a variety of constraints, including power, cooling, cost and sheer lack of physical space, data centers are turning to both higher capacity drives and more dense storage systems to increase their storage capacity, reducing operational expenses and accommodating the data center’s footprint limitations. Opinions expressed in the article above do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Data Center Knowledge and Penton. Industry Perspectives is a content channel at Data Center Knowledge highlighting thought leadership in the data center arena. See our guidelines and submission process for information on participating. View previously published Industry Perspectives in our Knowledge Library. (Comment on this)
1:32p	Apple to Build First China Data Center to Comply With Law (Bloomberg) — Apple Inc. will establish its first data center in China to speed up services such as iCloud for local users and abide by laws that require global companies to store information within the country. The new facility, which will be entirely driven by renewable energy, will be built and run in partnership with Guizhou on the Cloud Big Data, Apple said in a messaged statement. Apple aims to migrate Chinese users’ information, now stored elsewhere, to the new facility in coming months. The data center is part of a $1 billion investment by the iPhone maker in the province. The data center was partly driven by new measures that bolster control over the collection and movement of Chinese users’ data, and can also grant the government unprecedented access to foreign companies’ technology. Forcing companies to store information within the country has already led some to tap cloud computing providers with more local server capacity. “The addition of this data center will allow us to improve the speed and reliability of our products and services while also complying with newly passed regulations,” the company said in its statement. “Apple has strong data privacy and security protections in place and no backdoors will be created into any of our systems.” Apple’s partner was co-founded by the government of Guizhou, which has begun promoting the impoverished mountainous central province as the country’s data center capital. It hopes the high-tech facilities will bring white-collar jobs to the region best known as the home of China’s fiery national alcoholic beverage, baijiu. Working more closely with the Chinese government is an important step for Apple’s business in the country, which is the tech giant’s second-largest market globally. Apple’s iTunes Movies and iBooks service were shut down by the State Administration of Press, Publication, Radio, Film and Television last year after less than seven months of operations. Its market share has also fallen as consumers wait for an updated iPhone 8, which is likely to be released later this year, or switch to cheaper Android devices. Since then Chief Executive Officer Tim Cook has visited China to attend forums and open research centers while meeting with local media to boost the brand’s reputation there. (Comment on this)
8:15p	New Chinese Internet Clampdown Hurts Business, U.S. Group Says (Bloomberg) — China’s clampdown on the use of virtual private networks to circumvent the country’s internet controls risks disrupting businesses that depend on them for cloud services and data security. Besides using virtual private networks to gain access to websites like Facebook and Google blocked by China’s regulators, companies use VPNs to ensure speed and efficiency as they migrate more services to the cloud, and to ensure that data moving across those networks is secure, said Jake Parker, vice president of the U.S.-China Business Council. China is said to have told telecommunications carriers to block individuals’ access to VPNs — services that skirt censorship restrictions by routing web traffic abroad — by Feb. 1. The apparent acceleration of a crackdown comes as Beijing prepares to host the 19th Communist Party Congress, a sensitive time during which leadership reshuffles are expected and the government tightens its grip over media. Some businesses worry that the crackdown, which for now is said to target mainly individual users, could expand and end up hurting their operations. More than a fifth of foreign businesses responding to a European Chamber of Commerce survey conducted this year complained that existing internet restrictions affected more than a 10th of their in-country revenue. “Any kind of restriction on VPNs operating in the China market would be a disruptive influence on businesses operating here,” Parker said in a Bloomberg Television interview with Haidi Lun. His organization represents and assists about 200 American companies from Intel Corp. to Microsoft Corp. “What we’re seeing is a focus on stability moving up into the 19th congress, which is likely one of the reasons why restricting internet access is something that’s going on now.” While VPNs are widely used by businesses and individuals to view banned websites, the technology operates in a legal gray area. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology pledged in January to step up enforcement against unauthorized VPNs, and warned corporations to confine such services to internal use. At least one popular network operator said recently it had run afoul of the authorities: GreenVPN notified users it would halt service from July 1 after “receiving a notice from regulatory departments.” Companies operating on Chinese soil will still be able to employ leased lines to access the international web but must register their usage of such services for the record, people familiar with the matter have said. Yet quite apart from a wider crackdown on VPNs, foreign businesses have long complained about the damaging effects of unreliable internet access. The business confidence survey published by the European Union Chamber of Commerce found that unstable connections, slow Internet speeds and restrictions on access have “seriously impacted” its members. About a quarter of respondents reported lower productivity, difficulties in exchanging data and documents with their headquarters, partners and customers, and the inability to properly search for information and engage in research, according to the survey. In the 2017 survey, 22 percent of respondents estimate that the restrictions translated to economic impact of more than 10 percent of their annual revenue in China. In 2015, 16 percent of respondents felt so. Many foreign firms now rely on VPNs to get through to common apps such as Google Docs that its employees in other countries use. In fact, they’ve been known to quicken connections to cloud-based software — such as those deployed by Salesforce.com Inc. — that aren’t expressly blocked in China, Parker said. “For our companies, they used licensed VPN services to visit overseas websites. It is the only legal way in China,” said a spokeswoman for the European Chamber of Commerce in Beijing. For all the inconvenience and added costs, there will still be avenues to circumvent China’s controls, according to consulting firm ECOVIS. And it remains unclear how the carriers will execute the directive to block personal VPN use. “In the past, China has played a whack-a-mole game with these VPN services by restricting access to certain servers, but I don’t see how they could restrict them completely, given that they are not located in mainland China,” said Torsten Weller, a Beijing-based business development associate at ECOVIS who’s worked on domestic cybersecurity rules. “The restrictions might well intensify, but the only sure way to completely shut down VPN use would be a complete disconnect from the outside world.” (Comment on this)
8:22p	CommScope to Acquire Cable Exchange CommScope, a global leader in infrastructure solutions for communications networks, has agreed to acquire Cable Exchange, a privately held, quick-turn supplier of fiber optic and copper assemblies for data, voice and video communications. Cable Exchange, headquartered in Santa Ana, California, manufactures a variety of fiber optic and copper cables, trunks and related products used in high-capacity data centers and other business enterprise applications. The company, founded in 1986, specializes in quick-turn delivery of its infrastructure products to customers from its two U.S. manufacturing centers located in California and Pineville, N.C. This acquisition will deepen CommScope’s capabilities in supporting the growing market for high-capacity, multi-tenant data centers and hyperscale data centers operated by the world’s largest technology and retail companies.  As more user-driven information and commerce flows through networks, operators are quickly deploying larger and more complex data centers to support growth in traffic and transactions. “We are pleased to further expand our capabilities in the data center market with Cable Exchange, a trusted and respected provider of critical network infrastructure with strong customer relationships,” said CommScope President and Chief Executive Officer Eddie Edwards. “Further, we believe the people, products and performance of Cable Exchange are a great match for CommScope. “While the overall business environment remains challenging, we believe Cable Exchange’s leadership in the attractive quick-turn industry will complement our efforts in addressing this important market opportunity,” Edwards added. The leadership team and employees of Cable Exchange will join CommScope upon completion of the transaction.  Cable Exchange will operate as a stand-alone business within CommScope’s Connectivity Solutions segment. “We are thrilled to partner with an industry leader like CommScope,” said Cable Exchange President Joey Hynes. “We look forward to building upon our teams’ capabilities to serve the growing data center market.” The acquisition is expected to be completed within the next 60 days, subject to customary closing conditions, including receipt of regulatory approvals.  CommScope intends to fund the acquisition with cash on hand.  Additional terms of the deal were not disclosed.   (Comment on this)
9:35p	Net Neutrality Supporters Taking Action Today in Fight for Net Freedom Brought to you by IT Pro Supporters of net neutrality are today urging Internet users to send comments to the FCC to tell the agency that its plan to reverse the nation’s net neutrality rules is wrong and unfair. Instead, net neutrality supporters argue, the existing rules help ensure that internet service providers aren’t allowed to discriminate between different types of content and communications and should be maintained. The Day of Action online protest, which is being organized and supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Amazon, Facebook, Google, Netflix, Twitter, Etsy, Kickstarter, Mozilla, GitHub, Vimeo and many other businesses, is being held today, July 12 to grow support for the net neutrality rules, which went into effect in 2015. Also joining the protest are organizations including the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), the American Library Association, the Center for Media Justice, Demand Progress, Greenpeace, MoveOn and Organizing For Action. “The FCC wants to destroy net neutrality and give big cable companies control over what we see and do online,” the organizers of the Battle for the Net Project state on its website. “If they get their way, they’ll allow widespread throttling, blocking, censorship, and extra fees. On July 12th, the Internet will come together to stop them.” A wide range of websites from participating companies and organizations are today displaying prominent alerts on their home pages, displaying what their sites might look like if net neutrality rules didn’t exist in the future. That could mean that sites would be blocked unless users pay to access them, or it could mean that access would be slowed due to the whims of ISPs, the groups argue. The protest pages and sites will also encourage visitors to send notes with their opinions directly to the Federal Communications Commission and to Congress to protest the agency’s proposal to dump the net neutrality rules. Net neutrality was approved by the FCC in 2015 to protect free speech on the internet to prevent ISPs such as Comcast, Verizon and AT&T from slowing down and blocking websites of competitors or companies that potentially wouldn’t pay premiums to promote their sites. The rules, which are part of Title II of the federal Communications Act, also forbid ISPs from charging apps and sites extra fees to reach a specific audience. Supporters argue that net neutrality is the fairness that makes the internet a place for creativity, free expression and for the exchange of ideas, without controls that sort content based on pay meters or popularity. “Without net neutrality, the internet will become more like cable TV, where the content you see is what your provider puts in front of you,” says the Battle for the Net Project. A typical protest was noted on the EFF web page on July 12, showing the site “blocked” by a pop-up unless visitors pay a $199.99 access fee. The “fee” is satire and mocks what could happen in the net neutrality rules are dumped, the group said in a statement. “You might have noticed something unusual when you visited the EFF website today: our site was ‘blocked’  unless you shelled out for ‘premium’ internet access,” the homepage states. “As part of the day of action to support net neutrality, we decided to imagine what might happen if FCC Chairman Ajit Pai caves to industry pressure and abandons the net neutrality rules the FCC adopted just two years ago. If you don’t want to live in that future, it’s time to take action.” The EFF created a special site, DearFCC.org, where visitors can send their comments to the FCC to let the agency know their thoughts about the proposed reversal. “We’ll offer some suggestions to get you started, but you can say whatever you like. What’s most important is that the FCC hears from you,” the group adds. At Twitter, Lauren Culbertson, the public policy manager for the social media company, wrote in a July 11 post on the Twitter Blog that her company is part of the online protest because net neutrality rules as they stand today help encourage freedom and innovation on the internet, giving small players as much access as the big players have online. “In general, these principles mean that Internet Service Providers (ISPs) are obligated to treat and transmit all bits equally, regardless of origin, content, or destination,” she wrote. “Net neutrality is foundational to competitive, free enterprise, entrepreneurial market entry – and reaching global customers. You don’t have to be a big shot to compete. Anyone with a great idea, a unique perspective to share, and a compelling vision can get in the game.” But that could change if existing net neutrality rules are reversed, she argued. “Without the guiding principles of net neutrality, it is entirely possible Twitter would not have come from a somewhat quirky experimental 140-character SMS service to where we are today, an international company with thousands of employees and a service that incorporates pictures, video, and live streaming and connects the world to every side of what’s happening.” The open internet rules put in place by the FCC in 2015 “are based upon a solid legal framework that has been sustained by the courts,” Culbertson continued. “The FCC net neutrality rules effectively safeguard the open internet as an engine of innovation and investment and as a global platform for free expression.” Twitter opposes the FCC’s intentions today to be “moving quickly through a rulemaking process to gut the core entrepreneurial and consumer protections that are the heart of the innovation economy,” she wrote. “The FCC should abandon its misguided effort to obviate all the work that has been done on behalf of all internet users.” Internet users can submit their comments to the FCC for the record by visiting this link and clicking on the “Express” tab to file their remarks. (Comment on this)
9:40p	IBM Revamps Computer Network Unit Around Watson AI Platform (Bloomberg) — International Business Machines Corp. is revamping its Global Technology Services division, which helps customers run their computer networks, to rely more heavily on artificial intelligence. The new AI-capability will help IBM’s customers minimize disruptions such as server outages or switching malfunctions by predicting problems before they occur and automatically taking corrective action, such as brokering additional cloud capacity or rerouting network traffic around bottlenecks, Bart van den Daele, general manager of IBM Global Technology Services in Europe, said in an interview. The product offering, powered by IBM’s Watson cognitive computing platform, will enable the company to maintain its market share in IT network infrastructure management, Van Daele said. New York-based IBM has been struggling to pivot from reliance on older products like computers and operating system software and into higher-growth areas like AI and the cloud. It’s facing stiff competition from rivals including Microsoft Corp., Cisco Systems Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, who have also begun emphasizing artificial intelligence and automation in products that help customers manage their servers and networks. Recently Microsoft announced a major reorganization of its global salesforce, in part to focus on selling AI-enabled products and services.  Since becoming Chief Executive Officer in 2012, Ginni Rometty has increasingly sought to integrate Watson — a suite of different artificial intelligence capabilities linked together — into all of IBM’s product offerings. She has done so in part because sales of its traditional products, which included hardware such as mainframes and servers that were physically located in customer’s offices, as well as the service contracts to maintain these systems, has been steadily declining. In the first quarter of this year, IBM notched a 20th consecutive quarter of revenue declines. The move announced Wednesday follows a series of job cuts at IBM’s Global Technology Services division last year that were billed as a strategy shift toward more cloud computing and AI operations. But Van den Daele said the announcement about his division’s new emphasis on AI-based software “is in no way linked to our work rebalancing. We are focused on driving the next level of innovation in infrastructure. We are not doing it to create labor efficiencies.” For example, instead of employing an analyst to simply stare at a dashboard, trying to interpret network performance data, that person could now be automatically alerted to a slowdown and presented with three options to choose from to get the network running smoothly again, Van den Daele said. The system also has the ability to understand IT helpdesk queries using natural language, meaning that it could take over much of the low-level work that a company’s IT support staff have to handle on a daily basis. IBM trained its Watson-based IT infrastructure platform by feeding it data from more than 10 million past incidents, Van den Daele said. The system is now handling more than 800,000 incidents a month. The new system, which has been piloted with customers including Danish banking group Danske Bank A/S, has already made improvements in network performance, he said.  “We saw a significant reduction of server incidents,” Jay Steen Olsen, Danske Bank’s chief technology officer, said in a statement. He said the IBM platform would “help us act before an incident occurs and move us closer to an integrated, automated and always-on environment. “Van den Daele said one large food services distributor, which he said he could not name due to customer confidentiality, had been able to reduce critical issues across a network of 4,000 servers by 89 percent and it had reduced the time needed to resolve the remaining issues to just 28 minutes from an average resolution time of 19 hours before the AI-based system was used.The AI-based analytics run on IBM’s cloud computing platform, but the underlying data is retained by the customer on whatever network architecture they currently use, van den Daele said. (Comment on this)

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